Emptyeye

Until Classic Games Done Quick, which is the official name for the SDA Charity Marathon! Myself and 21 other runners will be playing through 72 games in 54 hours or so, starting at 6PM January 1st with the original Mega Man, and ending at about midnight January 3rd/4th with the completion of Final Fantasy VI. Again, we’re playing for CARE, so come by the SDA Main Page over new year’s weekend to watch, chat, and donate!

I’ve been stepping up my practice for this over the past two weeks, especially my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles playing, since I had very little previous experience with it, and it’s known as one of the harder games on the NES. My best run is currently a little over 24 minutes, which I’ll definitely take in a live setting. Part of this was the fact that I got some good luck with where the Technodrome decided to spawn in Area 5, but my actual execution is definitely improving as well. The other four games I’m not particularly concerned with.

In non-speedrunning news, I’ve gotten past a bump in the road as regards the game I’m making. I managed a completely inefficient, but ultimately working, method of equipping and (More importantly) unequipping items. The next step is going to be working out magic.

We’re slightly less than a month away from MAGFest, and I’m seriously looking forward to the SDA Charity Marathon, seeing as I’ll be participating in it and all. Click the link and you’ll be taken to a page related to the marathon directly.

Though I was a frequent patron of the challenges booth at the previous two MAGFests, I’ve barely looked at the page this year. This is mainly due to the fact that I’ve been trying to get ready for the Marathon, though I do plan to look it over and see if I can at least complete one challenge of each difficulty to get each of the prizes for the associated difficulties. Sadly, I don’t think Ryon took my (Half-joking) suggestion of a “Challenges Expert” pair of pants to go with the t-shirt of last year and hat of two years ago, which would give me a full “Video Game Expert” outfit.

In other news, I wound up playing through Final Fantasy V Advance over the last month or two. It was quite fun…one of the things that struck me is that, on average, it didn’t take a particularly high level to get through. I beat the game with an average level of about 43 without really fully exploiting the job system. This is far lower than I needed to be for either FFIV or FFVI (Or, for that matter, FFVII). Actual game-wise, the Job System is maybe my favorite advancement system in a Final Fantasy game to date. As for the plot, supposedly the game doesn’t take itself that seriously, but I didn’t really notice that to be honest.

And…that’s really it from here.